Chris looked up at Hinata, white eyebrows pinching together like the dog was about to cry.
“C’mon, let’s go. Back up the stairs,” Hinata said, tugging lightly on the leash, but Chris did not move. “What’s wrong, Chris? Get up.”
He tried a stronger pull, but Chris wouldn’t budge. It seemed like the dog might not move from that spot ever again in his life. Chris even had his front legs pushed forward to hold himself in place.
“Chris, come!” Hinata ordered, but the dog refused. Left with no other choice, Hinata got behind Chris, reached down, got his hands under his sides, and lifted. His idea was to shift the dog forward to get him moving, but Chris was much heavier than he’d realized.
By the time he’d reached the base of the steps, Hinata had to lower Chris back to the ground. He wouldn’t be able to get him up the stairs. Hinata was ashamed to admit it, but he was one of the weaker boys in his class.
“Please, Chris, just walk!” he pleaded. But no matter what he did, Chris stubbornly stayed in place.
At a loss, and on the verge of tears, Hinata sat down on the lowest step.
A little over a week later, Chris was slowly getting used to his new home.
The dog had learned the family’s daily schedule so that when Hinata woke up in the morning, Chris was happily wagging his tail as his owner emerged from his room. When the family was relaxing in the living area, Chris was almost always next to Hinata on the sofa.
Starting with their second walk, Hinata had learned to be very mindful of any nearby insects. If he saw one, he would quickly cross to the other side of the road and move past it, or wait for it to go away. As long as Chris didn’t see the bugs, he didn’t panic and didn’t plop down and refuse to move. Chris walked with good posture and always followed Hinata’s commands. It was obvious the dog had been trained well.
Hinata, too, was careful to remember his walk supplies and got used to cleaning up after Chris.
Suzune often repeated the story of their first walk. “It must’ve been really awful, huh? I didn’t see either of you when I got up, so I rushed outside and found you both hugging each other and crying,” she’d say, laughing.
“I wasn’t crying! I just didn’t know what to do, because Chris wouldn’t move!” Hinata would protest every time. Chris would then chime in with a bark.
“You’re even starting to act like each other,” Suzune would say with a satisfied smile.
Mayuka often accompanied them on their evening walks. She and Hinata always had the same conversation.
“Hey, can I hold the leash?”
“No. Not until Chris gets more used to me.”
“You’re no fun. How much longer will that take?”
“Umm… Two weeks, maybe?”
When people saw Hinata walking Chris, they would often call out to him. Without realizing it, he was having a lot more interactions with new people.
“Aww, what a cute Shiba. What’s his name?”
“The breed is actually called Shiba Inu. And his name is Chris,” Mayuka would say. She was always the one who responded while Hinata took a step back. Holding a light and bubbly conversation the way Mayuka did was still too much for him.
“Having a dog might help Hinata get over his shyness,” his mom had said, but Hinata didn’t think it would be that simple. Still, he couldn’t help but smile whenever someone said Chris was cute.
One of the people who talked to them on their walks was a young patrol officer from the local police station.
When Mayuka explained to him that Chris was a former police dog, the officer had said, “Wow! A Shiba Inu police dog? That’s impressive!”
He revealed that he had actually taken the job because he wanted to be a trainer for police dogs.
“But I ended up doing routine patrol duty,” he said with chagrin. By now, Officer Iwata had already become a familiar face.
Another person they came to know was a college student who lived in a little apartment near the police station. The first time he spoke to them, both Hinata and Mayuka backed away with apprehension due to his appearance.
He was very tall, at nearly six feet, and his hair was bleached blond and spiked. He wore flashy T-shirts that looked like they’d been splattered with all kinds of paint and tattered vintage jeans. He even had a number of gold piercings in his ears and often wore sunglasses. But when he took his shades off and crouched down to get a good look at Chris, the college student’s face broke into a sappy, slack-jawed grin, like he couldn’t be happier.